The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Ganguly in sole lead

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Ganguly in sole lead

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: Defending champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly of Indian Oil, Kolkata won with the black pieces against Tejas Bakre of Ahmedabad in the sixth round to wrest sole lead in the Velammal National ‘A’ chess championship here on Friday.

Ganguly worked as trainer for Grandmaster Alexei Shirov at the Candidates Matches at Elista in May last year and understands the Ruy Lopez better.

Using one of those Arkhangelsk variation lines in his opening helped him. Ganguly won a pawn in the middlegame and was poised to win a second pawn after the 36th move that provoked Bakre’s resignation in a rook ending.

In a day dominated by fighting draws, Ganguly’s victory took him a full point ahead of the rest. Ganguly leads the 44-player field with five points from six games and is well placed with seven rounds remaining.

Endgame skills

Sudhakar Babu exhibited his endgame skills yet again. This time the Indian Bank player from Chennai sparkled in a knight ending with deft moves to derail Ratnakaran of Kozhikode.

Orissa International Master S. Satyapragyan held Grandmaster Gopal of Kerala to a marathon 98-move draw after winning a queen for rook and bishop.

Barua surprised Adhiban with a draw offer after equalising with the black pieces in a French defence. National sub-junior champion Sethuraman of Velammal School, Chennai used tricks and his passed pawn to win a knight and defeat Rahul Shetty of Mumbai for a place in the second spot.

Deepan Chakkravarthy stopped his string of defeats by making a draw in a difficult knight ending against Thejkumar.

Thejkumar has been the most impressive of all untitled players.

Important results (round six): Tejas Bakre 4 lost to S.S. Ganguly 5, M.R. Venkatesh 4 drew with A. Kunte 4, S. Satyapragyan 4 drew with G.N. Gopal 4, B. Adhiban 4 drew with D. Barua 4, Deepan Chakkravarthy 3.5 drew with M.S. Thejkumar 4, P. Negi 3.5 drew with S.R. Chowdhury 3.5, Sudhakar Babu 4 bt K. Ratnakaran 3, S.P. Sethuraman 4 bt Rahul Shetty 3, Saptarshi Roy 3 lost to (forfeit) R.B. Ramesh 3.5, P.M. Thipsay 2.5 lost to S. Saha 3.5, Vidit Gujrathi 2.5 drew with Neelotpal Das 2.5.

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